![Digitalteilchen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Digitalteilchen.svg)
''Calculating Space'' (german: Rechnender Raum) is
Konrad Zuse
Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-c ...
's 1969 book on
automata theory
Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science. The word ''automata'' comes from the Greek word αὐτόματο ...
. He proposed that all processes in the
universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...
are computational.
This view is known today as
the simulation hypothesis, digital philosophy,
digital physics
Digital physics is a speculative idea that the universe can be conceived of as a vast, digital computation device, or as the output of a deterministic or probabilistic computer program. The hypothesis that the universe is a digital computer was ...
or
pancomputationalism
Digital physics is a speculative idea that the universe can be conceived of as a vast, digital computation device, or as the output of a deterministic or probabilistic computer program. The hypothesis that the universe is a digital computer was ...
.
Zuse proposed that the
universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...
is being computed by some sort of
cellular automaton
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
or other discrete computing machinery,
challenging the long-held view that some physical laws are continuous by nature. He focused on cellular automata as a possible substrate of the computation, and pointed out that the classical notions of
entropy
Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
and
its growth do not make sense in deterministically computed universes. Zuse's thesis was later expanded by German computer scientist
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber (born 17 January 1963) is a German computer scientist most noted for his work in the field of artificial intelligence, deep learning and artificial neural networks. He is a co-director of the Dalle Molle Institute for Artif ...
in his technical report ''Algorithmic Theories of Everything''.
See also
* ''
A New Kind of Science
''A New Kind of Science'' is a book by Stephen Wolfram, published by his company Wolfram Research under the imprint Wolfram Media in 2002. It contains an empirical and systematic study of computational systems such as cellular automata. Wolfram c ...
''
*
Simulated reality
The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live i ...
References
Further reading
* (70+4 pages)
* (98 pages); (69 pages)
*
External links
*
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber (born 17 January 1963) is a German computer scientist most noted for his work in the field of artificial intelligence, deep learning and artificial neural networks. He is a co-director of the Dalle Molle Institute for Artif ...
'
siteZuse's book and 1967 paper.
''Calculating Space'' - a painting by Zuse- Konrad Zuse's visualization of the idea
Web article and simulation of such a calculating space in C and LIBPNGSecondSpaceSimulation of waves within a 2D space (time and space are discrete), similar to FDTD. An OpenCL graphic card is needed.
Theoretical computer science
Konrad Zuse
1969 non-fiction books
Physics books
Cellular automata
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